Tub and shower fixture replacement

Hello everyone,
I am remodeling the bathroom and have the tub area down to the studs, and I want to replace the shower fixtures. Excuse me as I do not know any of the terminology. The part that I am having trouble with is removing the old plumbing where you turn the water on. There is a pipe there that looks like a plus sign, and I have the same one in the kit that I bought. The one in the kit that I bought is threaded, but the one currently hooked up looks like it was sodered together. Once I take this off, do I need to soder a threaded end piece on the current piping to hook it up? This is my first attempt at plumbing except for hooking up some faucets and it does not intimidate me and I feel comfortable sodering. Can I take on this task or should I call a plumber? If it is easy enough to do myself then I would rather take it on than spend the money.

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hello golfer.if you feel comfortable solider'en we can do it! first turn off the water!!! open a hose bib and a lavitory faucet. so water can drain out. oben the old tub valve . now look at it .do you need to go to the supply house an get some copper male adapters. some pipe dope.you got a torch. flux.solider.a heat shield , so you dont burn the house down?

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ok place the heat shield,behind the old valve. heat the elbows on both sides of the valve tap the [unsweat] elbows with your pliers [water pump] now tap harder , pull them apart. beat em tap em pull em whatever it takes. does it have a shower head ? take that apart to. after it cools clean the two pipe ends you heve exposed. look on the end pipe ends is there solider build up on them ? will a elbow fit on them? heat a little ,wipe with rag,sand

sand the ends again' do not touch the end of pipe after you sand it .your oilly hands contaminate it. flux the pipe end and the fitting put it togather.when your were unsweating the pipes.if this was to difficult then cut the pipe about six inches down and go back with couplings and replace with new stuff get back with me with anything else frodo

Frodo,
Thank you so much. Good explanation. I should be able to figure that out. But one question, the male adapters are threaded right? I just wrap some teflon around the threads and screw in once I have solidered everything together? Also, can I buy the male adapters at a place like home depot?

shower

glad i could help. you can buy the male adapters at any hardware store sweat apeice of pipe to them first ,then cool them offthen use pipe dope[i been plumb 25 years i dont trust teflon tape] on the threads your tub spout needs to be 6 to 8 inchs above the tub good luck